November 12, 2008

Yesterday, the hubby and I celebrated our thirteenth wedding anniversary. We didn't do much, just a quiet take-out dinner at home with candles and the boys requesting more cranberry juice. It was perfect.

I made a card with real paper for the first time in probably a month. Yikes! I used the new card kit from CupCards {to go}. Very cute stuff put together by my good friend Sonda.

August 26, 2008

seriously my kids come up with the coolest stuff. A few mornings ago I got out the craft box and the glue guns upon request and went off to edit photos. When I came back into the kitchen, each of my boys had created a sock puppet. The only thing I really did was help Caleb with the hair on his. The rest of the day was spent giving life and personalities to their puppets.

Here's Caleb showing me "Little One" and his expressions. These images just make me goosebumpy.

August 22, 2008

First up, the August Lime Tart galleries are up and wow are they amazing. Take a look at the three galleries: Full Tart, Half Tart and A la Tart. Good stuff indeed. I've posted my own projects using the Half Tart at the bottom.

Second, I finally finally finally got my photography bog up and running. Who knew that setting up and customizing my own WordPress blog on my own domain could be so challenging, time consuming and yet completely addicting? At first I was totally overwhelmed. I didn't know a Linux server from an FTP program from a MySQL database. Have I lost you already?? Yeah, well then you see what I was faced with too.

But after a little research and reading (OK a lot of research and reading) and a few tech support calls, I started to make sense of it. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing because now I see the potential to do some really cool stuff with a WordPress blog and the temptation to immerse myself and tinker indefinitely is strong. I finally had to give myself a deadline to just get it out there already and that deadline was arbitrarily today. So please do go take a look at my new baby and let me know what you think. Leave me a little love so I can test out the comment sections, too, if you don't mind! I know I won't be able to resist continuing to tweaking it around so don't be surprised if things keep changing a little bit.

Don't worry, this blog isn't going anywhere. Well at least until I decide to export it into a WordPress blog at which point I'll let you know where that's going to be. But I do intend to continue this blog for sharing the crafting and personal side of my life. My photography blog will focus on -- obviously -- my photography.

My third set of random thoughts has to do with gender cues and our society's entrenched beliefs about what is male and what is female. Having a sweet-faced little boy with long blond hair has given me many opportunities to experience people's biases -- both conscious and unconscious -- about these issues. He is often addressed as a girl when we are out and about and usually I just shrug it off. I always correct the person's assumption in a matter-of-fact way and we all move on, end of episode.

This week, however, I had one of those experiences that really just blew me away. This fall, Caleb is playing AYSO soccer, as he has done for the past two years. Its a boys' soccer league. The girls have their own league. You have to sign up months in advance and go down to register in person, etc. etc. The applications are processed and the kids are grouped into teams (they all have written records from their past years of play) and the coach has a roster with all the names on it well in advance.

So Wednesday afternoon we show up for the "meet the coach" session at the practice field. A small group of boys are standing around and a man -- who turns out to the be coach -- is standing with a box of uniforms, passing them out. I approach and introduce myself, then putting my hand on Caleb's head, I introduce him by name. The coach looks down at the roster he's holding on a clipboard, appears to find Caleb on his list and says "hi" to him. He then turns to me and says, "Lets get her a uniform. What size do you think she needs?"

I think people two states away could see the smoke coming out of my ears at that point. I mean this was the boys soccer league, the coach knew his name is "Caleb" (know any girls named Caleb?????), and Caleb was standing there dressed in camo cargo pants and a Bionicles t-shirt. The only detail present that could have possibly suggested that he was a girl was the hair. Yet this guy could not get past the hair to consider the overwhelming factors that pointed to "boy" in this situation. He had to believe that a kid with long blond hair was a girl.

August 12, 2008

That was fun! Why don't I invite famous people over for dinner more often? Oh, wait. I actually don't know any famous people. Well anyway, its a goal, right?

As predicted, dinner with "the astronaut" was a big hit with the boys. The hubby has known "Hoot" Gibson for several years -- he has been an expert witness for him on a few occasions. What a nice guy. He happily fielded numerous space questions from all of us. Not that I had any many. Did you know that astronauts only drink through cups and straws? And that the straws need clamps so that the food doesn't fly out the end? Or that they can only have tortillas in space because bread has too many crumbs? Or that the most amazing sight from space is the aurora australis or southern polar lights? Hoot flew five missions in the space shuttle and commanded four of those. He was also on the first shuttle flight that docked with the Mir Space Station. So if he says so, I'm inclined to believe him.

We did manage to get a picture of the boys with Hoot.

Not the best flash-in-the-dining-room photo op, but hey, sometimes you take what you can get. Now that my brush with fame is over, we can return to eating leftover pasta on top of my latest sewing project spread all over the dining room table. I hope no one has a problem with that.

August 11, 2008

Fine I'll just tell you. An astronaut is coming to dinner. I kid you not -- I am cooking dinner for an astronaut. Can you imagine how excited my boys are right now? I hope to get a picture or two to post later.

Also, I will be back soon with some sneak peaks of my August Lime Tart Half Tart projects. If you have boys you will LOVE this kit. Cosmo Cricket papers and some way awesome Tim Holtz products. Go check it out!

August 06, 2008

That sounds like a tabloid headline, doesn't it? Sorry to disappoint but I don't have anything sordid to reveal. However, I am ready to share a pretty huge project that I've been working on for the better part of this year.

I seem to have started a business! On the one hand, I feel like I'm not quite sure how that happened. One minute (last January) I was just wondering about whether I could actually pull off a photography business and thinking I would "test the waters" in 2008. The next minute I was getting referrals from friends who let me do practice shoots on their children. As the snowball got bigger and bigger, I realized I needed a formal business in place.

Let me state the obvious -- starting a photography business is a whole heck of a lot of work which has nothing to do with the actual picture taking. Sitting here right now I am frankly amazed at what I've managed to accomplish in the past 6 months.

Now that my photography web site has launched, I feel official enough to share. I am truly at the beginning of this voyage but I'm really excited to see where it will lead.

I apologize for neglecting this blog lately. It has definitely taken a back seat to some of the other things going on around here. Once the dust settles a bit I have several sewing and paper projects waiting for me. Also stay tuned for a new blog I'm working on that will be focused on the photography side of my life.

July 26, 2008

I'm back from the reunion, all twenty-two visitors are gone, and I'm slowly catching up on life. I say slowly, because in a fit of frustration, I decided I needed to upgrade my computer right now and you all know what that means. Yes, an endless time-sink transferring files, troubleshooting, plugging and unplugging components. Ugh. Thank goodness my hubby is great with computer stuff. As soon as I get through this, I know its going to be fabulous. I'm just trying to focus on that.

I have a ton of pictures from the reunion which I'm slowly editing in between swearing at my computer. For now, I'll share just one along with a quick story. When you live in California and the rest of your family lives in the Midwest or on the East Coast or in the South Central part of the country, you tend to get lots of jokes and comments about living on the "Left" Coast. Or all the hippies that you must hang out with. Or all the tofu you must eat. Yeah, yeah, I can take it and I'm even willing to admit that I harbor a bit of a hippie soul and frankly I do like tofu. Even so, I decided to use the reunion as an opportunity for a bit of payback. Look what I made for everyone to wear on their visit to the Left Coast.

Oh yeah! Now that's tie dye baby!! Ah revenge is sweet. And it sometimes makes for good photos. Click on it -- its better bigger.

In other news, I've been digging into the super fun August Lime Tart Half Tart kit and, while I can't say tooooo much, I think I can share few a little peaks of the Half Tart with you.

And speaking of peeks, and since I'm feeling guilty about being a bad blogger, here's a peak of one of the many way-too-cute new releases coming out from Just Johanna's Odd Bird Planet.

I have seen the whole range of stamps she is coming out with for Halloween and let me tell you I cannot wait to score some of these. The creativity just blows me away! Johanna will be making the release available on August 1, so we don't have to wait too long thank goodness! If you want to receive the new release announcement, get on over and sign up for Johanna's newsletter here.

July 17, 2008

As in Lime green! Good thing I love limes! The gallery is up for the Lime Tart July kits and holy moly is there a lot to feast the eyes on! Hey!! I'm really loving the exclamation points this afternoon aren't I?!! Anyway, make sure to take a look through all the fabulous projects by the Lime Tart DT. Here are mine.

I am freshly back from our big family reunion down near Monterey. It was so much fun and we are totally exhausted. I think I'll be doing laundry and "recovering" for a week! I'll be sharing some fun pictures from the trip soon.

July 13, 2008

Well the cat is out of the bag on one of my secrets. Or should I say that the bird is out of the cage? Or the lime is out of the tart? OK clearly I better stop now before they get much worse!

My big news is that I've joined the Design Team for Lime Tart, which is now selling its amazing kits in the United States through the equally amazing Just Johanna's Odd Bird Planet! Hop on over to the Odd Bird Planet store and check out the beautiful July Lime Tart kits. And check out Johanna's stamps while you are there. They are so very cute!

This month I had the pleasure of working with the Full Tart. Wow what a great kit! 'll leave you with a few peaks at the designs I made with the kit. Check out more peaks on the Lime Tart Zest Blog!

I'm off the beach for the big family reunion! More surprises in store, I'm sure!